For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic began, racing took place at the Isle of Man TT on Saturday with the opening six-lap Superbike race of the week.
FHO Racing’s Peter Hickman won comfortably on his BMW M1000RR ahead of DAO Racing’s Dean Harrison and Hawk Racing’s Michael Dunlop.
A three-lap Sidecar race was due to take place after the Superbike contest, but was halted after only a few moments due to a serious incident at Ago’s leap just one mile into the course.
Tragically, French passenger Olivier Lavorel died in the incident, while the driver of the Shock Factory outfit Cesar Chanel was airlifted to hospital in a serious condition.
As a result of the postponement of the first Sidecar race, Monday’s second race day of the 2022 TT has been altered.
As scheduled, the first Supersport race of the event will get underway at 10:45am local time, but will now be run over three laps instead of four.
Then at 1:10pm, the rescheduled Sidecar race will take place and will run over two laps instead of three.
The day will be completed by the Superstock TT at 3pm, which has also been reduced by one lap to three.
At present, Wednesday will feature the second Supersport contest and the Supertwins race, while Friday will feature the second Sidecar race and the blue riband Senior TT (the second Superbike race of the week).
Saturday’s Sidecar tragedy marked the second fatal accident of the 2022 TT, after solo rider Mark Purslow was tragically killed in a crash at Ballagarey during Wednesday evening’s practice sessions.
Tributes have poured in across social media from riders over the past few days paying tribute to the two competitors killed this week.
Saturday’s Superbike race avoided another potentially serious incident when podium runner Davey Todd suffered a frightening delamination of his rear Dunlop tyre at the Sulby section of track.
This followed a spate of failures for Dunlop slick rear tyres at the North West 200 last month, which prompted the tyre manufacturer to withdraw its slick range as a precaution and replace it with a cut slick instead.
As of yesterday evening when Todd had been able to make it back to the paddock and confirm the issue to Autosport, Dunlop had yet to receive the offending tyre for analysis.
